Washu's Story
by mjhennessey
Summary: Washu tells Ryoko about her past life and how she came to be as she is now.


It starts back 20,000 years ago. No .. it goes back much further than that. Okay, I think I can trust both of you to keep all of this in confidence. What I am about to say will break the agreement that I made 20,000 years ago with my two sisters Tsunami and Tokimi. For all of that time, the common knowledge has been that I have no memories of my past life as a goddess, as one of the Choushins. But that is in fact not true at all, I retain all of my memories of that past life. My sisters were not heartless enough to destroy my memories, so we agreed to this, to only pretended to lose my memory and avoid problems that way. People at that time were so afraid of me, that no one could accept my presence among them as I was. You two, Ryoko and Sasami, are the first ones to ever learn this.  
  
Now to begin. Without going into a lot of detail, at the beginning of time as you know it, the three of us created the Universe. Each one of us each assumed a different responsibility in the creation of the Universe. Tokimi's job was to actually construct the Universe - dimensions, space, stars, planets, galaxies - all of the physical realms. Tsunami's job was the creation and propagation of life, to fill the Universe with living creatures. And as an outgrowth of that Tsunami created the spiritual realms as well. My role was to make all of it work, to provide harmony and a peaceful existence for all elements of the Universe. I know that may seem pretty overwhelming, but that's what I set out to do. Being a goddess gives you a little different perspective on how things work in the Universe. If a problem arose somewhere, immediately I would go and fix it. It was quite simple to me at the time, and I didn't realize that wiping out troublemakers was such cataclysmic process. Their worlds, empires, even whole races were easily exterminated and peace would be quickly restored. It's not hard to imagine that soon I would become the most dreaded being in the Universe. Everyone feared my approach. Everywhere I went I was met with fleets of warships or mechas, bristling with weapons. There was no discussion anymore, they would just attack on sight with full power. But their powers were miniscule compared to mine, and I erased them from existence with just a single thought.  
  
And as such things went for uncounted thousands of millennia and nothing improved. Nothing I did ever restored harmony to the Universe, and in most cases just made things worse. I never thought of myself as a evil being back then, but I was hated by everyone everywhere. Even my sisters had begun to remark on how badly I had failed to maintain peaceful coexistence in the Universe. Eventually I despaired and began to even hate myself. I went to my sisters Tsunami and Tokimi and begged them to destroy me, but they refused. They came up with this instead *points to herself* Their idea was that I had such a hard time understanding the "little creatures" we had created, that if I were to become one of them, I would learn and understand their problems. That way I could come up with better solutions to the problems of people in the Universe. I agreed to their plan and they made me the creature of flesh you see here today. My powers they sealed in the three gems, but my intellect they left intact. Everyone was told that my memory had been erased to allow me to live among people without them being so afraid of me. The people at the Science Academy were willing to accept that I had been changed for the better, so they welcomed me to come and teach there. It wasn't too long after that that I met Mikamo.  
  
Mikamo was unlike any person I had ever met, even to this day. He was a sweet, kind and gentle person. A fellow professor at the Academy, he was highly intelligent, yet was very straight with his feelings. Never did he hide anything from me. Mikamo knew about my history of course, but he wasn't frightened of me, on the contrary, he was very interested in me and wanted to know more. His openness and willingness to accept me was hard to understand, because no one had ever been nice to me before. Many nights and weekends we spent together sharing our time and friendship together. All of this was so new to me, his kindness was so captivating and I couldn't help but fall in love with him. About a year after we had first met we got married and our son Mikumo was born about a year after that. I remember that being the happiest time in my life. In just a few short years I had gone from the dark depths of empty despair to a life full of love, joy, and happiness. And it was Mikamo who had brought that to me and added that dimension to the person I am now. However it was not meant to last.  
  
Mikamo had mentioned to me about how he had misinformed his family about his new wife. He was fully aware that they would not accept me, the evil goddess Washu, into their family, so he intentionally told them lies about who I was. Mikamo was very much in love with me and our relationship was that important to him, that he would lie to his own family to protect us from them. It wasn't too long before they found out though. His family was and still is very powerful on Seniwa and they were furious when they found out about what had happened, I found out later. Naja and I had been gone several weeks on a research expedition and when we returned to the Academy, Mikamo and our son were both gone, taken back to Seniwa by his family. He lost his position at the Academy and never returned. They left terrible, threatening notes warning me of dire consequences if I ever tried to return and see him or my son. I could not have been more devastated. For weeks I cried over everything I had lost, everything that was precious to me had been cruelly taken away. It was then that I had started to understand a little of how others must have seen me as the cruel and evil goddess Washu. All I could do was walk away. I could have easily reclaimed my goddess powers and taken my revenge upon Mikamo's family, but that would have only served to prove them right about me.  
  
Eventually I was able to overcome my grief and sorrow and get on with my life as an Academy professor. Naja was a great help during that time, I still owe her a lot for helping me through it all. But there are some things that time cannot heal. To this day I still love Mikamo, and my son Mikumo, and I will forever, nothing could ever replace them in my heart, nothing could ever fill the emptiness left behind by their loss.  
  
And that brings me to your question Ryoko - why did I create you? Loneliness, that's why. For another 15,000 years I taught at the Academy, and met thousands of different people from all over the Universe. Some thought I was brilliant, some thought I was eccentric, and some thought I was just plain strange and stayed away from me. There were even a few that thought I was cute and fun to be around, but none, not a single one ever showed any romantic interest in me at all. After all that time I had given up on ever finding a boyfriend or husband, Mikamo was the only one ever meant for me. To this day I am totally convinced of that, he was my "Tenchi" Ryoko. Naja and I were discussing a cloning project together, when I conceived the idea of creating a daughter for myself. Maybe I would never be married again, but I could still have a family. So I used my own ova combined with the masu to clone a girl with half of my own genes, a true daughter. And the day you were "born" Ryoko was the happiest day for me in 15,000 years, I loved you too right from the very start, so innocent and beautiful. the most perfect child a mother could ever want. But like before, my joy was so short-lived ...

Yes, Kagato. At the same time I created you Ryoko, Naja cloned Kagato, he was her part of the project. Naja's intent was to create an exact duplicate of herself, not a child like I did with you Ryoko. She used her complete genome for the cloning process. But cloning isn't a perfect process as recent events here on the Yagami have borne out. Something went wrong with the clone of herself that Naja made. The clone was a male, and highly ambitious as well. We didn't suspect the extent of Kagato's ambition at first, and realized it only after it was already too late to stop him. At first Naja was very disappointed that her project had deviated so much from her planning. However Kagato had the genius intelligence that she wanted her clone to have, and after a while she was able to get used to him being a male. So at that point things seemed to have filtered out the way we desired. I had a daughter to raise and care for and Naja had her research associate to work with. Our troubles were behind us, so we thought.  
  
It was some time later, when you were about six months old Ryoko, that I gave you my three gems. For 15,000 years I had been holding onto them. A two edged sword the gems are for me. Their power is a constant temptation for me, to take them back and return to my former existence as a goddess. That is something I greatly dread and resist with every fiber of my being. Never do I wish to abandon my humanity and become that evil creature again. But at the same time I also realize that the power of those gems in the wrong hands could produce horrible evil in the Universe. So I dared not ever let them out of my sight. But now I had a daughter, a girl with a clean and pure heart that evil had never touched. She could not commit acts of evil with the power of my gems, since she knew nothing of evil. So I gave them to you Ryoko, because I could rest easy with them in the hands of an innocent, and without the contant temptation of their power in my immediate presence. When I gave the gems to you, is the point at which Kagato became aware of their awesome power.  
  
Unknown to us, Kagato had become obsessed with the power of the gems, obsessed to the point of madness. He was very careful to keep his plans and desires hidden from us. Kagato continued to work alongside Naja and myself, never letting on what he was planning to do. My next great project was the building of my research vessel, the ship that all of you knew as Souja. A multidimensional ship that I intended to explore all of the depths of the cosmos with. It had two sides, the experimental side, the mirror dimension, and the control side, the normal space dimension. The idea was to be able to conduct experiments in dimensional mechanics and observe the results both at the same time on the same ship. That's why I made the mirror side completely locked out of the normal side - no experiment could damage the ship if it got out of control. Of course Kagato was involved in the designing and building of the ship with me and that's how he had such intimate knowledge of its workings.  
  
The Souja was completed and launched from the Academy with great fanfare. I was indeed proud of my accomplishment and went out into space to begin my research and life with my daughter Ryoko. It was at that point that Kagato seized his opportunity for power. While I was working on setting up my first experiment on the reversed side of the ship, Kagato, who had stowed away on the ship, trapped me there. I was shocked and astounded by what he did and demanded an explanation. All he did was say "The power of the gems is mine now professor!" A cold feeling of terror almost stopped my heart - you were still on Kagato's side of the ship, Ryoko, and I had no way to reach you. He used the ship's experimental resources to imprison me in the cryogenic freeze chamber, but I still had awareness of what was going on in the normal side of the ship. In my mind I saw Kagato take you Ryoko and steal your mind. He completely replaced your mind with his own and thus achieved total control over your body and the gems. Witnessing the complete violation of my innocent daughter by that madman, made my blood boil with rage. I reached out to the gems with my mind to grasp them .. but I didn't. The life of a single criminal, and even the life of my own daughter, would not justify the deaths of billions at the hands of the resurrected goddess Washu. My boiling rage cooled down, and inside I began to sob uncontrollably, my heart broken again.  
  
But that was just the beginning. For 4,300 years Kagato enslaved and abused you Ryoko, forcing you to commit acts of evil and violence that your own mind wasn't even aware of. And for all of that time I watched helplessly, unable to do anything to stop him short of becoming a goddess once again. Time after time I cried bitter tears inside as each one of Kagato's expeditions were more violent than the ones before. It wasn't until the encounter with Yosho, that the violence stopped. He used great power, power derived from my sister Tsunami that could overcome the power of my gems. I thought for sure that you would be killed by him, Ryoko, but at last my sorrow would come to an end I thought. But instead he spared your life after he took the gems from you and I was greatly relieved, my 43 centuries of torture was finally over. It wasn't until just a little while ago of course that both of us were freed from the nightmare that Kagato put us through. And we have Tenchi to thank for that, for giving us our lives back Ryoko.  
  
Maybe if I had told him all of this before, he would not have left us Ryoko. I don't think he ever realized how important he is to us, the profound impact that he has had on our lives and our future. Just leaving like he did wasn't fair at all. He knew that you loved him Ryoko, but instead he went to someone else. It seems that you are very much like me Ryoko, destined for a life of some joy followed by a lot of sorrow. I really hope not, but as long as we are together, we can overcome this. And someday I know you will find joy again Ryoko.


End file.
